University of Tasmania, Australia

Community Members - Littering Perceptions, Attitudes and Behaviours in Freycinet National Park

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1.Invitation

You are invited to participate in a survey that has been designed to assess attitudes to littering and littering behaviour in the Freycinet Region (especially Freycinet National Park) of Tasmania. This study is important because tourist activities in Tasmania are rapidly expanding, and visitor numbers to Freycinet National Park have increased to 292 000 people in the last financial year. Valued for its pristine environment, a growth in visitor numbers has led to increased incidences of littering which has become problematic, despite existing anti-littering signage and information.

This study is being conducted in partial fulfillment of a Bachelor’s degree for Ms. Jemima Crewes under the supervision of Dr. Melinda McHenry of Geography and Spatial Sciences in the School of Technology, Environment and Design, and you are warmly invited to participate.

2.What is the purpose of this study?

This study aims to document how connected people feel to Freycinet National Park, what their perceptions and attitudes are to litter, littering behavior and current anti-litter signage at Freycinet National Park. The objective is to understand the reasons for littering and to provide suggestions to interested stakeholders on how the issue can be dealt with.

3.Why have I been invited to participate?

You have been selected as a potential participant because you are a Freycinet community member. Your involvement in this study is voluntary and there are no consequences should you choose not to participate. You must, however, be at least 18 years of age to be able to participate.

4. What will I be asked to do?

You will be asked to complete a questionnaire with up to 25 questions in five sections. Most questions are multiple-choice and involve you simply ticking a box in accordance with your response on a ‘likert’ scale (e.g. strongly disagree – strongly agree, strongly dislike – strongly like). Some questions require a short, written answer. Completion of the questionnaire is expected to take a maximum fifteen minutes.

5.Are there any possible benefits from participation in this study?

Participation will be of great benefit to the management of Freycinet National Park and the contributions of local community groups who work hard to keep the area in its pristine state.

6.Are there any possible risks from participation in this study?

There are no foreseeable risks associated with this study. You cannot be identified in any way from taking part in the online survey.

7.What if I change my mind during or after the study?

Participants are free to withdraw at any time during the completion and submission of the survey but after this time it will not be possible to remove your survey responses from the study as you will have provided these anonymously.

8.What will happen to the information when this study is over?

Your responses will be entered into a spreadsheet along with the responses from all other participants. These data will be used to write a report for the purposes of a university third-year project being conducted by Ms. Crewes and supervised by Dr. McHenry.

Eventually, the data may be published as part of a report to interested Freycinet stakeholders (such as community groups) or as part of an academic publication. In accordance with guidelines pertaining to the academic publication of survey data, we are obliged to keep your responses for five years after a manuscript has been accepted for publication. Should this occur, the data will be kept in secure storage in the UTas office of Dr. McHenry and eventually destroyed. Please note that nowhere in the survey are you asked to provide your name, so the data that is retained is completely anonymous.

9.How will the results of the study be published?

The study will be published as a student report to the University of Tasmania as part of an undergraduate research subject. The results may later be used in an academic publication, or as part of a report to interested organisations such as local or state government bodies. Participants will not be identifiable in the publication of the results.

10.What if I have questions about this study?

Dr. McHenry can also be contacted via email if you would like to request a summary of the overall results (and eventually, a report or academic publication containing the results).

There are 20 questions in this survey.

Privacy

A note on privacyThis survey is anonymous.The record of your survey responses does not contain any identifying information about you, unless a specific survey question explicitly asked for it. If you used an identifying token to access this survey, please rest assured that this token will not be stored together with your responses. It is managed in a separate database and will only be updated to indicate whether you did (or did not) complete this survey. There is no way of matching identification tokens with survey responses.

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